Snowstorm forecast haunts New England

Saturday

Oct 29, 2011 at 6:00 AMOct 29, 2011 at 5:13 PM

By Bill Fortier TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

Weather forecasters are using words like historic, extreme and unprecedented to describe the storm expected to hit the region later today. Shortly after 5 p.m., close to 6,000 National Grid customers in Worcester County were already without power.

The National Weather Service in Taunton issued a winter storm warning late yesterday afternoon that goes into effect at 5 p.m. today and continues through 8 a.m. tomorrow for Worcester County. Forecasters say snow could reach a foot deep in northern Worcester County. Southern Worcester County can expect up to 7 inches of snow.

It began to snow early this afternoon, and heavy, wet, windblown snow is expected to last through the night before ending early tomorrow morning.

Meteorologist William A. Simpson said meteorologists in the Taunton office believe this is the first time in the 20 years since the office opened that a winter storm warning has been issued in October.

The biggest October snowstorm recorded in Worcester occurred on Oct. 10, 1979, when 7.5 inches fell. Mr. Simpson said that record could be history by tomorrow morning. Only four October storms in the 107 years that records have been kept in Worcester have deposited more than 2 inches of snow.

“It is a fair statement to say this could be a historic storm,” Mr. Simpson said.

“A major winter storm will bring damaging heavy wet snow to interior southern New England,” the weather service said in the winter storm warning.

“Snow will fall heavy at times through Saturday night. One to two inch per hour snowfall rates are possible at times Saturday night. Heavy wet snow will result in tree damage and scattered power outages. The damage could be quite extensive with the potential for an area of widespread power outages. Untreated roadways will become snow covered and slippery.”

The warning also said the wind could gust as high as 45 miles per hour. Visibility could drop to one-quarter of a mile tonight. Channel 7 chief meteorologist Pete Bouchard said whiteout conditions could occur.

Weatherbell.com co-chief meteorologist Joseph Bastardi said it looks as if 6 to 12 inches of snow will fall in Worcester County, with some places north and west of the city possibly getting 15 inches.

“This is an extreme, widespread event,” he said.

Meanwhile, Leicester native Mark J. Paquette of Accuweather.com said the storm is expected to leave heavy snow from the Maryland panhandle to northern New England.

“For Worcester it certainly is unusual but not unheard of to get measurable snow in October,” he said. “We're forecasting New York City to get an inch of snow in this storm, and that has never happened in October. This really is an extreme situation.”

Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency spokesman Peter Judge said the storm that is expected to drop heavy snow on trees, which in many cases still have a heavy canopy of leaves on them. That could cause many power failures in Central Massachusetts. He said anticipated strong winds tonight will only cause more problems.

“The real concern, without question in Central Massachusetts, is power failures,” Mr. Judge said. He noted that MEMA has had several conference calls with emergency officials across the state since Thursday.

“There's an awful lot of trees with an awful lot of leaves on them. There is the potential for a lot of trees to come down in Central Massachusetts,” Mr. Judge said.

Mr. Judge says that if people have generators they should make sure they have gas to run them and that they know how to safely operate them.

He said people should walk around their property and try to remove any tree branches or limbs that could come down during the storm.

“There probably will be a lot to clean up,” Mr. Judge said.

Unitil Corp., a New Hampshire-based gas and electric utility holding company with customers in Northern Worcester County, announced yesterday that it was making preparations for the potential of extensive damage to the electrical infrastructure, including mustering additional resources.

“The key issue is that there are still a substantial number of leaves on all the trees locally,” said Alec O'Meara, Unitil media relations manager. “Leaves fall off in the winter for a reason, and the extra surface area will allow even more snow to stick to limbs. All of that extra weight has the potential to cause healthy, normally non-threatening trees to fail, leading to additional outages.”

He also cautioned that, with possible increased pedestrian traffic after the storm because of Halloween, people should be mindful of downed power lines and cables and avoid coming into contact with them. Pedestrians should also avoid wet ground and puddles near downed lines, he said.

David Graves, spokesman for National Grid, said his utility company was also putting in place equipment and personnel to quickly respond to potential outages. He said National Grid began yesterday doing outreach and planning with both MEMA and municipal officials in the 170 cities and towns it serves in Massachusetts.

The company also has additional crews coming in today who will be working overnight, as well as on-call electrical contractor and tree crews.

Paramount to the company is public safety, Mr. Graves said, and if homeowners have backup power generators they should make certain the devices are properly vented outside the home.

There are some positive aspects to the storm, and one of them is that it is happening on a weekend night when traffic should be lighter than during the week, Mr. Judge said.

“There are some decisions that are easy to make, and one of them is keeping off the road,” he said.

Another plus is that the storm won't be followed by very cold air like what ordinarily happens in a severe Nor'easter during the winter.

“It is October, after all,” Mr. Judge said.

Mild weather means that people who lose their electricity won't suffer in the cold like those who lost their power for days after the December 2008 ice storm. On the other hand, it will be harder to keep normally refrigerated and frozen food from spoiling.

Mr. Paquette said the temperature should rise into the 50s by early next week.

“Whatever snow falls should be gone pretty quickly,” he said.

Mr. Bastardi said the long-range forecast calls for mild weather through the middle of November before it turns colder than normal during the second half of the month.

Mr. Paquette said cold air that followed the small storm that dropped up to 4 inches of snow in northern Worcester County Thursday night is teaming up with energy that is moving toward the East Coast to cause today's big storm.

He said the coming storm that is expected to explosively intensify off the East Coast will also ingest some moisture from Tropical Storm Rina, which is near Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Both he and Mr. Simpson said if the storm were happening in midwinter, the area could get between 1 and 2 feet of snow. They said that because it is October and the nearby ocean temperature is still in the low 50s, the amount of snow would not be that high.

Winston W. Wiley of the Telegram & Gazette staff contributed to this report.